


The Knees of the Gods--The Original Draft

by Trobairitz



Category: Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: Character Death Fix, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 06:51:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobairitz/pseuds/Trobairitz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bunny wrote that Raffles died in the Boer war. But perhaps he had good reason to be an unreliable narrator. </p>
<p>The original, uncensored ending to The Knees of the Gods went a little... differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Knees of the Gods--The Original Draft

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is written a little unusually.
> 
> The sections before and after the breaks, at the very beginning and end, are taken directly from The Knees of the Gods as Hornung wrote it (since it's public domain). I pick up shortly after Bunny is shot in the leg. 
> 
> The Knees of the Gods is the last story in Raffles, Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman, which is available wherever you get your public domain books.
> 
> Go read (or reread) the whole story if you want more context. :)

_"Feeling worse, Bunny?"_

_"No, I've only closed my eyes. Go on talking."_

_"It was I who let you in for this," he said, at his bandolier again._

_"No, I'm glad I came out."_

_And I believe I still was, in a way; for it WAS rather fine to be wounded, just then, with the pain growing less; but the sensation was not to last me many minutes, and I can truthfully say that I have never felt it since._

_"Ah, but you haven't had such a good time as I have!"_

_"Perhaps not."_

_Had his voice vibrated, or had I imagined it? Pain-waves and loss of blood were playing tricks with my senses; now they were quite dull, and my leg alive and throbbing; now I had no leg at all, but more than all my ordinary senses in every other part of me. And the devil's orchestra was playing all the time, and all around me, on every class of fiendish instrument, which you have been made to hear for yourselves in every newspaper. Yet all that I heard was Raffles talking._

* * *

_He murmured soft things, trying to make me laugh or smile, but there seemed to be a buzz behind his words and I could not make out the specifics, only the rise and fall of his intonation. The quiet tones of his warm voice were now in my ear, now farther away, shouting something at that gray hat. My ears seemed to have retreated into my leg, into the rush of blood. The pain had grown more again, and I think I must have groaned aloud, for at once Raffles had moved nearer again._

_“Oh, Bunny,” he said, a tone of terrible pain in his voice, the false cheer slipping away. And then, although I cannot be certain, for nothing was certain in that haze, I think I heard the words that I did not imagine I would ever hear Raffles say._

_“Oh, Bunny, I am so sorry.” His voice was choked with emotion and he pressed dry lips to my temple in his dear old way. His mouth moved down to my own, and I thought in a disconnected way that I must stop him, someone would see, forgetting our cover and the haze of gunfire. But an instant later his lips were gone and he was speaking again._

_“My dear, dear Bunny, it is all my fault that this has happened. I led you into a life of depravity, and now I have led you to its end.”_

_I tried to murmur “no” but I could not make my lips move. I was slipping again. I thought I heard him say something else, but then I was gone. I do not know how long. It might have been minutes, and it might have been hours. When next I swam to the surface of consciousness, Raffles still lay on the dusty earth beside me. He was talking again, or perhaps he had never stopped._

_“What does Queen and Country matter if the cost is you?”_

_I had gone quite numb, but I managed to speak at that._

_“Raffles, don't say that!”_

_“Oh, Bunny, it's true. I had thought this a good way to go out, clean, but I was wrong. I have always had something to return to and in trying to leave in this manner I've nearly lost it.”_

_My voice seemed to catch in my throat, the numbness was being replaced with fire and pain again, but I managed to get the words out. “Whatever do you mean, Raffles?”_

_“You, Bunny, I mean you! I can see now that I was a fool, thinking only of how to try to absolve myself.”_

_I wanted to interrupt again, to insist that some nobler passion had guided his actions, for I had seen it myself in the flash of his eyes, but I was struggling once more even to remain conscious._

_“Even though I knew you would follow me into service, still I thought only of finding a good end, not of the danger for you. I am so dreadfully sorry, Bunny. When we make it out of this, I'll find a way to make it all right. I do love you, my dear fellow. You mean more to me than anyone or anything in all the world. What, Bunny, are you asleep again? That's fine. You rest, and I will think of the plan.”_

_I did not want to rest. I wanted to open my eyes, to look into my dear friend's own glittering eyes so that I could decide whether to argue with him or to kiss him, for never before had he spoken so sentimentally to me. But in spite of myself I slipped once more into my leg, and from there into darkness._

_When at last I awoke again I was in hospital and Raffles was gone. I ached for him, and my pain and uncertainty turned to a dread chill when I heard that he was among those missing from the bloody battle._

_~~-~~ _

_~~  
~~_

“Oh, really, Bunny, that's far too much.” Raffles was behind his chair, reading over his shoulder. Harry huffed.

“And how long have you been there, A.J.?”

“Long enough to read what you've written. I should look dreadfully soft if this goes to print.”

“I've only put down what really happened, what you really said.”

“You've left out half the things I said.”

“Well, I wasn't conscious for a great many of them.”

“I suppose that's true.” Raffles leaned in and pressed an affectionate kiss to his Bunny's temple. Neither spoke for a few moments.

“Well,” Harry said, turning once more to the sheet before him, “I suppose you do have a point, anyway.”

“Haven't I always, my dear Bunny?”

“I've let a bit too much slip, I think.”

“A bit? It looked like you were just preparing to go into your months alone in London, putting that terrifically honest face of yours to good use with a great show of melancholy, until at last you decided to move to France. And who could blame you, miserable as you were?”

“But I wasn't moving because I was miserable! I was moving because I got your message!”

“And I am sure that you would have included that bit of information as well.”

“I'll rewrite it.”

“Oh, mostly just the end bit, I think. Will you be done soon?”

“Soon.”

“Only we will be having a bit of tea in the garden soon, I think.”

“Soon, my love.” Harry turned his attention back to his writing, proud of his resistance in the face of Raffles. Raffles, for his part, wandered out of the room, no doubt towards the veranda and tea.

Harry ran a hand through his hair, its shade even lighter than in the past with the sunny days in the south of France. But how to rewrite it?

  
-

_Raffles did not take the hero's end he had hoped to find. He chose running and hiding, instead. He chose, in the end, me. But even if he chose not to absolve himself, and I followed him, as I always have and always will, still, nonetheless I can absolve him in the eyes of the world. Many are the lies of omission which I have already chronicled in these stories, leaving only one life of sin into which I followed him like a pup at his heels and mentioning not a word of the other. So what great failing is it if I concoct a bit wholesale, give the tales of Raffles an end that will leave him less a villain in the eyes of the world, and leave us in peace? I shall pen another ending, and he will find his gallant death, if not in reality, at least on the page._

-

 

He pushed the page aside. The previous one had ended on "Yet all that I heard was Raffles talking." That seemed as good a place as any to skew facts. But the new ending could wait until after tea.

 

* * *

_"I have had a good time, Bunny."_

_Yes, his voice was sad; but that was all; the vibration must have been in me._

_"I know you have, old chap," said I._

_"I am grateful to the General for giving me to-day. It may be the last. Then I can only say it's been the best—by Jove!"_

_"What is it?"_

_And I opened my eyes. His were shining. I can see them now._

_"Got him—got the hat! No, I'm hanged if I have; at least he wasn't in it. The crafty cuss, he must have stuck it up on purpose. Another over ... scoring's slow.... I wonder if he's sportsman enough to take a hint? His hat-trick's foolish. Will he show his face if I show mine?"_

_I lay with closed ears and eyes. My leg had come to life again, and the rest of me was numb._

_"Bunny!"_

_His voice sounded higher. He must have been sitting upright._

_"Well?"_

_But it was not well with me; that was all I thought as my lips made the word._

_"It's not only been the best time I ever had, old Bunny, but I'm not half sure—"_

_Of what I can but guess; the sentence was not finished, and never could be in this world._


End file.
